Ripping & Burning

[Gregg Lengling]

Anyone have any luck ripping and burning DVD to SVCD. So far I've had no problem ripping and creating MPEG2's however when it comes to burning to CD it's never playable on the computer or DVD player. And yes I'm burning in SVCD format (takes about 2 hours to code it for the CD and 20 minutes to burn), but doesn't play and isn't recognized in the DVD player in the family room.

Any tips ect...on line or via email.

[GADGET71]

Greg- I have done it a few times. Primarily using DVD Decrypter and DVDX. They are playable on my home DVD player and on my DVD burner in my computer, but not on my CD burner. You can get more help at dvdrhelp.com and vcdhelp.com on just about any topic related to burning cdr's or dvdr's. They are pretty good sites. My advise is to check out this sites DVD player section to see if your player will play SVCD's. Sometimes it may be the type of media you are using as well. Certain brands are more finicky than others.
________
Ford Crown Victoria history (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Ford_Crown_Victoria)

[mhz40]

Here (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDname=&svcd=1&Submit2=Search&Search=Search&viewall=0&order=0) supposedly is a list of SVCD compatible DVD players.

[brewtownska]

I'd actually suggest passing it around to your friends to also try (or taking it with you and trying it on other machines). Some machines are better at picking up the format than others. I questioned the same thing you do because I couldn't get one to play in my system, but gave it to my friend, and he said it worked fine on his system. Granted, I have a 5-yr old Toshiba DVD player, so I KNEW it wouldn't work on it, but I more or less wanted to know if I was following the process to make a VCD correctly. I know you were talking SVCD, and I only did a VCD...but I still think the same idea applies. Try multiple machines before you decide it's your process that's wrong.

Mike

[summerfun]

You know, I went down the path you are now and VCRhelp.com / DVDRhelp.com is a great site. Make sure you check it out.

But after a lot of frustration. Different formats, different brands of disc, different DVD players and all, I decided that it was not worth all the hassle.

DVD burners are so cheap today, I would suggest just moving over and stop with the SVCD. I am much happier, my movies look better, you can get more to a disc and they will play on almost all players.

Good luck.

[Gregg Lengling]

You beat me to the punch...I'm am now looking around for a DVD burner to replace the DVD Read Only drive in my computers and decided to go to that format.

[summerfun]

You might want to keep your DVD player and replace your CD burner instead. Your new DVD burner will also be a CD burner.

I have one DVD/CD player and one DVD/CD burner in my system. That way you can make disc to disc copies very easily.

[Gregg Lengling]

And now I'm going crazy reading all the reviews on Different DVD Burners. So I'm starting to get an idea of what to order but open to comments (good and bad) from those of you out there using DVD Burners.

Thanks In Advance!

[summerfun]

I would still point you back to dvdrhelp.com. Great site and great reviews of products.

Get one that at least does 4x speed and both + and - R burning. Some are faster, but they are new and the unproven and the media is not very available or cheap. Besides, what’s the hurry? All the time is spent in editing and rendering, how many minuets it takes to burn is not that big a deal. Hit burn and walk away.

I use the HP and have not had any problems.

[Gregg Lengling]

Okay did all my research...lots to read through. Found the best bang for the buck...$165.00 after rebates is: Pioneer DVR-A07/107

It's ordered and should be here in 5 days from California (they offered free UPS ground shipping) so with that and no sales tax it's $195.00 and then I'll send in the $30.00 rebate form and get it down to 165. After all my searching looks better than some of the $300 plus units.

[Gregg Lengling]

Well the new burner is here and installed and I must say it's a dream. Looked through the software and the bundled software was fine except it couldn't handle DolbyDigital. Not to fear an upgrade to their latest greatest took care of that and allowed me to burn a DVD from a RIP job I did. Works just great.

The software has tons of tools to allow me to create chapter titles and all the neat stuff commercial DVD's have when you access the menu functions and jump through chapters and extras. Also I'm just reading through on how to create a DVD slideshow with my Digital Pictures from my trip to England and Ireland. I'll be able to create a great show with background music, dubbing with verbal notes and even captions and artwork. This will be great instead of showing everyone my huge mess of pictures on a laptop I can just start this wonderful show on my 65" HDTV and dump these 3megabyte file pictures in glorious size and color with wonderful music.

The upgrade on the software was $69.00 for the download and $5.00 bucks extra for them to Snail Mail me a CDROM for backup ect. The download was 175mB but with 1.5m DSL it only took 15 minutes or so.


It is ULEAD DVD FACTORY 7.0 and there are all sorts of extras and it's very intuitive, so I'm having fun right now.

[sp44again]

The best bang for your buck is the NEC-2500 8X burner. It's only $100 on NewEgg and has awesome reviews on dvdrhelp. I also have it and have had no problems.

[Gregg Lengling]

Originally posted by sp44again
The best bang for your buck is the NEC-2500 8X burner. It's only $100 on NewEgg and has awesome reviews on dvdrhelp. I also have it and have had no problems.

I read reviews on about 7 different sites and yes the NEC did come in very good but after much deliberation and looking at installation ease, bundled software ect..I chose the Pioneer DVR-A07/107 and so far have been SuperHappy with it. Granted it was more money but then again, money wasn't the big thing, the big thing being compatibility and operation.

[StarvingForHDTV]

I have to plead total ignorance here.

Can you copy DVD movies?
Can you record digital TV broadcasts in 16:9?

Just curious.

Starving

[Gregg Lengling]

Originally posted by StarvingForHDTV
I have to plead total ignorance here.

Can you copy DVD movies?
Can you record digital TV broadcasts in 16:9?

Just curious.

Starving

Item one, yes I can copy DVD movies. Legal Disclaimer: For personal archive purposes only.

Yes with my HiDTV Pro card in my computer I record to the HardDrive and then format them to save on DVD's. However if I save them in HD format I can only play them back thru the computer (which the HiDTV card outputs component to the HD set). But I can scale them down to 480p and record them like a normal DVD. Still much much much better quality then a SD recording.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Thank you Gregg. That's a nice setup you have then! Now I see why it would be worth purchasing.

Starving

[tazman]

Hey Greg
Check out the Office MAX weekend fliers. They almost always have one for sale every weekend for under $80 after rebates thats where I got mine, and yes I did what the other genttleman suggested And replaced the CD burner and not the DVD player. DVD decrypter is OK, Smart Ripper might be a little better it's your preference. Also get a copy of DVD Shrink, you will need it to make those 2-1/2 to 3 hour movies fit into a -R or +R disk;)

Tazman

[Gregg Lengling]

Actually I'm very happy with the Pioneer drive and it is in the spot where the CD burner was so I still have the Read Only CD/DVD drive. I've tried Smart ripper but it's not as good or quick as the solution I finally found.

I use DVD Decrypter to open and copy the DVD to the drive. Then I use IFO edit to format it and strip it. You can use IFO edit to split the files to make it fit a 4.7 disc and then the rest on another disk. Shrink reduced the quality too much.

Then for burning I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3.0, which is a great program and is also allowing me to make great slide shows with music, titles, captions and voice overs for my photographs from trips. I just make a set of 2 DVD's of all my England photos and it's just super. DVD Decrypter and IFOedit are free on the internet but the Ulead program came bundled with my drive, but the bundled version wouldn't allow DolbyDigital, so I upgraded to the full version for 69.00 and it was worth every penny.

I can rip and burn a double densisty DVD to two single densisty DVD's in about 40 to 60 minutes, so it's much better than some of the other options where the ripping could take up to 8 hours.

[tazman]

Hi Gregg

Ya I know what you say about DVDshrink. I have found that myself. So long as I have kept the compression under 25 or 30% the degredation is hardly noticable. I only bump the compression no higher than what is needed to make it fit. I started using Smart Ripper before I found DVD decrypter and gotten used to that, like I said its a matter of prefference. I have to get my self a new 8mm cam corder one of these days. My Sony V99 took a dump and can no longer be repaired, Sony says that parts are no longer avialable and if they were it would not be cost effective. I would like to get a digital 8mm, one that can also play back standard and high 8. Then I can finally get around to getting my camcorder tape collection onto the computer and burned onto DVD's. I'm using Cyberlinks Power cinema package, it came bumdled with the computer that I have hooked up to my Sony KF60XBR800 LCD. The only problem I have with that software is that the Power Producer Pro part of it will only run on resolutions of 768 V or higher and the MAX I can drive The HDTV is 720. Thankgoodness for dual head vga cards. Its a little hassel but I can always hook up a second regular computer monitor to the second vga port.

If you have any suggestions on a camcorder let me know. I was considering the Sony TRV350, but I'm not sure if it will do standard 8mm. I know it does Hi8 as well as digital.

Tazman

[Doug Mohr]

I also use DVD Shrink. Actually I use it to "backup" the DVD to my hard drive at 0% compression, then if I don't want to play it directly across the network (which is virtually never) in full DVD res, I'll use DVD shrink again to pull out the foreign languages, subtitles, extras, trailers, etc. I can usually squeeze it onto a blank DVD at 10-20% compression.

I then use Roxio 6 to burn it to a Sony DRU510A.

Doug

[Gregg Lengling]

When I'm creating and ripping, I usually take all the garbage off except for the english captioning....I don't see a need for the all the rest of the garbage. I'm not interested in shrinking because once I strip off all the garbage I've got plenty of room for the whole movie without compression (except for monsters like Lord of the Rings). Of course this will all be different in a couple years depending on the HD format that wins, I just hope we don't have another VHS/Beta battle to win.....and we actually lost that one.

On another note, anybody using a video input card to take their VHS tapes and create DVD's. I've looked around and it looks like everyone has their own favorite. I can't find a real trend towards one card or another.

Just looking for opinions if you have one and the ups and the downs....I won't blame you if I buy the card you have and don't like it. Of course the way things are going in my Family Room right now, I think the wife is going to ask me to create a Cable Trough for all the cables going to the computer from the HD=SET and vice versa....it's getting to be a pretty big bundle....sure will be nice in the future if someone comes out with an Optical Interface between a Media Center and the computer.

Yeah I know big wishes....but what the hey....Just as long as they don't go wireless...there is way too much RF floating in my house on 900MHz, 2300MHz and 5200MHz right now...don't need another wireless network.